


Iconoclasts Good End

by HaroThar



Category: Iconoclasts (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Healing, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Game: Iconoclasts, Recovery, Royal lives AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25001941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: Royal lives, Mina is in love with two women and conflicted about it, Robin is in love with two people and isn't conflicted at all, and Elro gets lovingly bullied into proto-therapy.They deserve to be happy dammit!
Relationships: Dr. Gustavo/Teegan (Iconoclasts), Mina/Robin/Royal (Iconoclasts), Mina/Samba (Iconoclasts)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello to all, like, twenty of you in this fandom, time to write the multichapter fic no one asked for. I should be updating daily-ish for like a week but we'll see how that goes.

“Just leave me… I deserve to die…”

Robin grit her teeth and carried on, wind whipping around them as the moon base was quickly sapped of all its air. Part of her was angry at him for demanding--always _demanding_ \--that He come back and listen to him, but the other part of her understood why Royal had done it (he wasn’t so different from her brother, for all the two would never see it). But mostly, she was just _frustrated._ Frustrated with Him, frustrated with Mother and all her entourage, frustrated with the fact that she could not catch one _single_ break and yeah! Frustrated with her friends and brother, too! 

“I’m just a burden…”

Well she could think of ways for him to be less burdensome! Using his ears for once, maybe. Using his legs _right now,_ that’d also do!

It wasn’t easy, y’know, staying chipper, staying optimistic. She did things because they needed doing, because she had the tools and the abilities and it would be sin-- _actual_ sin--to stay idle. But keeping a smile on wasn’t easy! It was never easy! And she wasn’t just gonna give Royal empty reassurances when they were _about to get sucked out into space!_

“Everyone would just be better off without me…”

Robin’s stomach dropped.

No.

No no no no no, no, the door--she could fix it. Right? She could fix it. She was a mechanic, fixing things was her whole thing and--but--

There weren’t any bolts. No screws, no nothing, they’d been sucked out, part of the debris. Maybe one of the very screws she needed had been the thing to clip her on the cheek, leaving a thin line of red--human--blood on her face. She set Royal down and ran ahead, searching, searching for something, anything--but there was nothing, and her wrench was too big to pry loose any of the tiny screws securing other panels. She ran back, frantic, knowing she was running out of time.

“Just go…”

She ground her teeth together and rounded on him. She hoisted him up over one shoulder, strong, aided by the moon’s lighter gravity, and held him there, legs trembling. She let go with one arm, grabbed the flapping panel by the cord, and took a step forward but--even she wasn’t that strong. Royal slipped, and in trying to catch him she dropped the panel, and the door slammed shut. She let out a wordless, frustrated scream, drowned out by the wind’s howling, and pounded her fists to the floor. She wasn’t leaving him!

“No one cares about me anyway…”

Oh that was _it!_ Robin grabbed Royal by his stupid lapel and smacked him, hard, straight across the face.

~~

Royal was aware only too late that He had struck him. The blow--did something, to him. Royal--wasn’t on the moon anymore. He wasn’t… he didn’t…

There was a shadow, here, with him. The shadow, interestingly enough, looked like… that girl. The pirate, the one who never had a nice thing to say about anyone, except for Robin (and really, who could have a bad thing to say about Robin?). Except not. It was wrong, for the lady, distorted, too large with too many… too much. Royal, angry, dejected, _rejected, again! AGaiN he’d been rejected AgAiN--_ lashed out.

It was what he was good at, wasn’t it? Stupid, spoiled, sheltered, foolish boy. Boy in a man’s clothing. Boy pretending to be a god. But he was still magic, even here, even in this place, with this thing, and he was so--

There wasn’t a word for his emotion, but it was a feeling, and it was a force. He shoved that force outward, out of his body, in the direction of the shadow, and it struck and it broke.

He moved. Not intentionally, but he was moved elsewhere. Another shadow. It looked like one of Mother’s acolytes but it could not more obviously be her.

_Why did you abandon me!?_ Royal asked with a mouth he couldn’t move, in this strange place. _Did you always hate me..?_

The grief, the rejection, they were immense, an endless well, a forever-lake that stretched down past any planet or star. Mother had only tolerated him, and she’d forsaken him, discarded him, the moment it was easy to do so. Was he not also divine!?

Her shadow broke.

Was he not also divine..? The third shadow was Him. Another rejection, another loss, another blow to the pride that was Royal’s only barrier between himself and the nothingness under his feet, the void that had _always_ been under his feet. Since before he’d even climbed into the trancendor, since before he’d ever tasted the sweet and heavy milk of ivory, always, always the void. Lurking, waiting, wanting him, craving him, reaching for him endlessly. The void’s hands pounded against the glass, pounded against his pride--no, his arrogance. The flimsy shield he thought would be able to keep him from seeing it. From the worthlessness of his own soul.

He shattered the glass, and brought the shadow of Him down with him.

The last shadow was of Robin. No strange distortions, no symbolic shapes, just Robin, above him, reaching out with her strong hand, reaching towards him. She seemed terribly far away, impossibly, infinitely far away, but at the same time, he knew if he were to reach out in return, their hands would meet.

“Just leave me,” he told her, the Stillness around him both haunting and comforting. “I deserve to die.”

She shook her head, jerked her hand insistently. 

“I’m just a burden,” he said, shaking his head, crossing his arms across his chest. Hugging himself, really, since he was already in the void and pretending that his arms were “crossed” in anything other than a self-soothing gesture was a fool’s errand, here.

Again, she swiped her hand up and back down, demanding he return her grasp.

“Everyone would just be better off without me!” Royal screamed, fingers digging into his sides so hard ivory trickled out into the void, floating weightless around him in globs.

But still, her shadow remained above him, reaching out to him, waiting for him.

“Just go…” he begged quietly, tears pearling out amongst the ivory. _Why are you still here? Don’t you know I was born to be abandoned?_

“No one cares about me anyway!” Royal screamed, knowing it, knowing what he’d always known, what had been here, waiting for him, right where he finally was.

“I do!” Robin screamed, her voice cutting through the void, _filling_ it. “On purpose! I care about you on purpose! Now stop being stupid and grab my hand!”

And Royal, startled, shocked even, obeyed instantly, reflexively, his eyes looking up.

No, his eyes looking directly forward, even, level with Robin’s. Robin, who had very evidently just finished slapping him. There were tears in her eyes, hair windwhipped out of its usual magnet-shape and flying about in the torrent. She looked _furious._ Royal numbly lifted a hand to his cheek.

“I… we’re…” Royal looked around him, at the debris flying past, at the moon base--he was still on the moon base. He jolted when Robin grabbed his hand, forced his fingers to close around a wire, and then hoisted him up over her shoulders. The triangle lit up green with his proximity and she carried him through the doorway, still trying to gather his bearings. He got the wind knocked out of him when she jumped shallowly and _threw him_ and all his ivory weight onto a tall box of X chemicals, and he scrambled to his feet as she jumped and joined him. 

“I can--I can walk, I, I’m here, I’m here,” he said, half a reassurance to himself. She grabbed his wrist and made him prove it, dragging him forward and helping him up over the second box of X chemicals. Was it getting hard to breathe? It felt like it was getting hard to breathe. The two staggered into an escape pod together, and Royal sucked in air, hands on his knees, bangs bouncing in his face with each inhale. His cheek stung.

He found he… didn’t really mind that. Maybe Black had had a point, back in the purple dust. Fear, pain… longing. They made him--

Human.

~~

Thank god Royal seemed to be over whatever it was the starworm had done to him. Now that she was somewhere safe (if the crushing threat of the endless void of space could be considered “safe”) she was feeling kinda bad for slapping him. Gently, she placed a hand on his shoulder blade, letting him know she was there, then stroked up to his shoulders. She sat him down on the escape pod’s seat, knowing they’d need to be strapped in for planetary reentry, and buckled them both in before lifting a careful hand to his face. Thick gloves touched spoiled, soft, smooth skin, pale as the ivory in his blood, and she tilted his face up so she could see the damage.

He hadn’t healed it, no telltale spark of ivory entering his body and fixing what had been broken. A strangely-colored bruise on his face, which made sense, given what he had instead of blood. Royal’s own hand raised up to her face, and just as tenderly cupped her cheek beneath the scratch she’d gotten, brushing his thumb gently underneath and staining it bright red. 

She smiled at him, weakly, and he smiled back exactly so. A rush of air left him, then another, his shoulders shaking, and he was laughing, but he was also crying, and she was shaking too and couldn’t tell which one was either but she hugged him and he hugged her back, burying his face in her shoulder and grasping her goldenrod hair as she clutched his thin, waifish, twig of a torso to her own hard enough to bruise there, too. She could hear his heartbeat, unnaturally slow even though she knew that for this, for now, it had to be pounding, and she could feel her own, four times as fast, jumping in her throat.

“Thank you,” Royal said, begged, cried--raw and emotional and nameless in his sobbing. “Thank you, I,” he choked, and then just pressed his face to her.

It was hard to say how long they clung to each other, like that, just two people alone among the stars.


	2. Chapter 2

They were nearing reentry. Below them, their planet waited, Elro and Mina waited, and He waited as well. Below them, all their problems, all the people, the people who’d clung to the agents and to Mother and to their religion--all of it fake. All of it false.

“I think Chrome was right,” Robin said, quite possibly the longest sentence she’d made aloud since her father--

In her visions, he asked her if she hated him. She’d always told him no. In dreams, in visions, in her brushes against death when she truly believed it was Polro himself that was asking. But if she was honest? Deep down, somewhere she didn’t acknowledge, some small, hurting part of her said yes. It was equal in size to the small, nostalgic part of Elro that thought fondly on their father, even after he had--

It was a work accident.

It _was_ a work accident.

Even a practiced mechanic that had been so many places, and seen so many things, like her father, could still slip up. Could still mistakenly put the triangle and the O chemicals next to each other. Right? It was an _accident._

But maybe it was time for her to stop lying to herself.

Elro never had. He’d been angry and hurting and accusatory since the day Robin heard the news, calling their father a coward, flinging himself into explosive sciences and turning over rocks he wasn’t meant to look under. That giant, aching part of him was equal in size to the part of Robin’s heart that loved their father, so, so much, the part of her that couldn’t be angry at him, even though she wished she could ask him why he did it.

Royal’s hand coming to rest on top of her own startled her. “Robin?”

She looked to him, and his shoulders slumped in relief. Then he asked, in the tone of a person who was repeating himself, “What was Chrome right about?”

Robin took a deep breath in, and spoke. “Everything, at least a little. We worshipped others because--it’s easier. The agents, Mother, you, you’re all people. Just people. And He’s just…” Robin looked at the planet the worm had flown to, through the little pod window, “a mindless space-animal. We just wanted someone to look up to. We need…”

“We need to look forward,” Royal finished for her, turning her hand over so he could thread their fingers together. “We need to look forward, at each other.”

“Yeah,” Robin breathed, letting her head fall down on his shoulder, clinging to his hand.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so much at once,” Royal remarked. “Sorry, that was probably rude.”

She snorted, but felt warm. He was trying. It had taken losing literally everything (but it had started after Mother, hadn’t it? He’d been quieter and quieter, same as she’d slowly been growing louder) but he was trying.

She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. “My father killed himself two months ago.”

Royal, for once, was completely silent. She felt him swallow, and pressed his head against hers where she lied on him. “I’m sorry.”

“He loved me…” Robin said, feeling tears coming up again, unbidden, but she’d already cried herself out. Maybe she’d even been crying over this. It was hard to tell, when everything was just coming out at once. “He just didn’t love me enough to stay.”

Royal nodded against her hair, and his hand squeezed hers briefly. “My, uh… my birth parents--I was the youngest human on record ever to enter the trancendor.” Robin tilted her head, a little, to indicate she was listening, and he cleared his throat before pressing on. “I wasn’t actually born in City One, although I was raised there. My parents, they loved me, but I think they, uh. If. If I lived through the process, I would have a better life, than what they could give me. And they would be better off, too, you know, without a third mouth to feed.”

Royal seemed to be having the same problem she was. “I know they wanted what was best for me. But having a family… wasn’t part of that.”

They were silent for a moment, and Royal lifted his head off hers. Reluctantly, she removed hers from his shoulder, and he said. “You’re right. What this world needs isn’t leaders, it’s people. Working together, working to help each other, like you’ve done, not to please some absent god or white-haired human who thinks she’s so grand as all that. I--I cannot be… Royal, anymore. If I return, the people will look to me and try to force things back the way they were.”

The pod shook as they began reentry, and they lifted the hands not holding each other’s to grip at the restraints clipping them in. 

“Well, hair dye has been rather popular, lately.”

~~

Robin, fortunately, was spared any real injury on the landing, but a poorly-constructed panel came loose at the harsh impact and hit Royal square in the shoulder. Grunting, he healed himself, but left the bruise on his face untouched. Everything Robin had ever given him--even this painful piece of his own humanity--was a gift.

He needed to be careful not to replace Mother with Robin, in his mind and in his values. But also, what was not to adore?

“Robin!”

Ah, yes, the pirate woman--Mina, he remembered now. She helped Robin up out of the wreckage and then immediately pulled her into a hug, Royal following after and leaning against his knees. My, but he’d done a lot lately. His jacket was ruined, utterly, so he discarded it, much like he had in Isilugar. It felt fitting to leave it with the ruined remains of his attempt to speak with his god. 

They were in Blockrock; this was Robin’s home. 

Royal’s fingers itched to turn the doorhandle and go inside, to see her home, how she lived, to gain access to every part of her life that he could touch--but no, that was impolite and he had no right to do so without her permission. He would wait for her to be done talking with the dreadfully rude pirate. Royal sniffed disdainfully, just a tiny bit, but the smoke and Mina’s own natural stench made him regret that a little.

Instant consequences reminding him that he was attempting to be humble. This would… take a while. 

“Elro’s in there, with a couple of your friends,” Mina said, jerking a thumb to the door. “Dunno how happy they’ll be to see him, but I’m glad you didn’t come back all alone,” she said loud enough for Royal to hear. He bit down on his initial reflex to be offended, and saw her words for what they were. She was glad he was alive.

“Yes, well, I feel you’d somehow smell worse as a corpse, so,” Royal said with a shrug, and Mina groaned and rolled her eyes. 

“Seriously, why are you still friends with him?”

“I could ask her the same question about you.”

And then, suddenly, inexplicably, Mina began to laugh. And Royal chuckled, and Robin snickered, and then all three of them were laughing and Mina was hugging Robin again and Robin was pulling Royal in and Royal still didn’t care for her much but he found himself entirely unbothered by Mina’s arm around his shoulders, or how his own encircled her waist. 

“We made it!” Mina exclaimed incredulously, “Somehow, we made it!” She sobered quickly after that. “Not that it matters much, since we’re all about to bite it anyway. That thing landed not too far from here…”

Mina pulled away, and gripped Robin by the shoulders. Royal tried to do that thing he’d so often been told to do, to ‘read the room,’ and he stepped back a few paces. 

“Robin, I love you. I love you so much I didn’t think it would be possible to love someone like this after knowing them for only a few days. But I love Samba, too. I think, I think you gave me the courage to finally admit that. I know that my faith--but I don’t care! We’re all going to die, and since we are, I wanna die with her. I need to tell her that I love her; I need to go back to her one last time.”

Mina leaned forward and kissed Robin’s cheek, and Robin touched her face. “Goodbye, Robin.”

To Royal, Mina simply nodded, before turning and starting to run.

Robin turned, blushing profusely, and when Royal opened his mouth she held up a hand. Well, fine then. But Royal would not forget that Mina beat him to the punch. He would do a far grander love confession, though. With flowers! Maybe some poetry. And food! Robin liked nuts, right?

Robin went into her home, and Royal followed after her, already plotting how he would descend upon a rope ladder whilst in song.

Oh god, Elro was… What had happened to his leg? Gracious. Robin did not go to him immediately and embrace him, as Royal had expected her to, simply hovered just inside the doorway, looking at him with a mixture of grief and something nameless. Elro stared back, haunted, but mostly empty.

The good doctor and the chemist left. Royal was not sure if Robin would want his company, or their privacy, and hesitated, shuffling towards the door but not actually leaving. What should he do? What would he have done, a week ago, before all this started? He would’ve assumed his presence was divine to be within, and that everyone was blessed by it, and wanted him there. So he left.

He went west of their home, and stared at the statue of Mother there.

The representative of Him.

Was He truly just a mindless animal, as Robin had said? He had not responded to Royal at all, but He had also sent Royal’s mind to… that place. And, after all, it seemed as though plenty of people had found Royal wanting, lately. 

Mother… had raised him. From childhood, she had been there, busy, always so very, very busy, but she’d been his mother. He’d loved her. He knelt at the feet of the statue, and did not know who he was praying to.

~~

Elro begged her to stay, to die with him, even suggested her “little boyfriend” join them in their home for it, in a desperate attempt to convince her.

She loved him so much. All her life, he’d been there, watching after her, helping her, showing her anything and everything he knew that she didn’t.

But she didn’t need his protection, anymore, didn’t need big brother to kiss her scrapes and scratches better, didn’t need his guidance. It was hard for him to accept that. Hard, in a way she didn’t think she was built to understand.

She felt the weight of his grief, but she could not shoulder it for him. She felt his desperate ache to protect her, the last shred of his identity he had left to cling to, and knew that if she walked out that front door, she’d be leaving him all the emptier for it. He missed Ella so badly. He missed their mother, who he never, ever talked about. He missed their father, too, for all he raged against him. He didn’t want to miss her, too.

But she didn’t want to die.

Even so, though, she had the doctor’s orders, and he was not a man she minded obeying. She crossed to her brother, slipped her body underneath the arm he still had, and lifted him. She did not carry him as she had carried Royal, knowing he would never accept it, even weak as he was. She simply helped him shuffle along, bearing the weight his bandaged leg couldn’t, and laid him down on their father’s bed. It was right next to hers, in front of it, really, if you were looking at it from the doorway.

“Please,” Elro begged, his voice cracking, his feeble fingers gripping onto her jacket. “Just stay with me now. That’s all I want. It’s just you and me, now; let’s meet the end together.”

But Robin, even after everything, had no intention of lying in wait for some fate to come find her. She shook her head, prying his fingers from her as he stared up at her in agony, his one good eye shining with tears she knew he would not shed and his mouth twisted up in misery.

“I’ll come home to you,” Robin promised, and left the way she came.

She found Royal kneeling at the base of a statue she’d only ever used to mark her progress in Blockrock, covert and ciphered so no one could accuse her of making any maps. She saved a lot of data, across these statues.

She wondered who Royal was praying to.

He rose, green stains on the knees of his white pants, and turned to smile at her, black shirt dark against his pale skin, his hair mussed and deeply human.

“Brave mechanic,” Royal said fondly, “I suppose now is the time to go fix things?”

In response, Robin simply pulled out her wrench and brought it heavily down upon her palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed me


	3. Chapter 3

When she was hit by the same thing He had struck Royal with, she rather understood why he’d been so… _deeply_ melodramatic. Royal was always over the top but she kinda got the despair now.

The first shadow was her brother, broken and shambling, with the statuesque ghosts of Ella and Henetta watching on. He swung wide, movements obvious and broad, and she dodged them easily enough. It was clear, to her, that he was only lashing out. She knew he didn't mean it. She took her wrench in her hands and she fixed it.

The second shadow was of Mina, in a strange and even more distorted way. She hovered there, watchful, but did not strike. No, not even in this place, not even here would Robin’s lover (was that what they were? Could she call her that?) strike her. She electrified herself, and she fixed it.

The third shadow was of Royal, and he, too, did not strike. He watched her closely, the triangle that served as his head seemingly following her with its gaze, even though he had no eyes to speak of, in this place. He curiously examined her as she spun the wheels, and she fixed it.

There was nothing to fix, with the fourth shadow. Nothing in the background, nothing but an endless sea of blackness. Blackness, and Black herself. She shambled towards Robin, dragging her carcass along the floor, skeletal jaw unhinged and eye sockets wide and haunting. “You did this to me” she seemed to say, in the empty space. “You killed me.” Robin remained where she was, frozen, guilt like two anchors on her feet. But in the end, there was nothing Robin could do. Nothing, except watch as Black self destructed in front of her.

The last was no shadow at all, but a vision. Her father, who she missed so terribly it ached, with his arms wide open and beckoning her to come. To stay with him. But she knew; she knew this wasn't real, she knew he wasn't there. She gave him a sad, though genuine smile, but turned and left through the door. There was work to be done and she needed to do it. She would not be deterred with “what-ifs.”

When she came to, Royal was standing over her, quite literally over her with a foot on either side of her chest, hands raised above his head and magic cutting a high whine around them. The claw of Him was hovering over them, ready to crush Robin the moment Royal’s magical stamina ran out.

He was sweating ivory. His naturally (or unnaturally, as it were) pale face was somehow bleached of whatever color he’d even had. In any other situation, she was sure he would have collapsed.

She grabbed him by the waist and launched them both out of the way, talons crashing into the ground where they’d been.

Royal was down for the count, gasping so hard his slender frame racketed with every breath. It was up to her to kill this thing.

But hey, she’d done everything else she’d set out to do, hadn’t she? She pulled out her wrench and her gun. Time to kill god.

~~

Mina found Samba on the shore, staring at the waves. Mina began running once more, feet pounding on the dirt, and when Samba’s eyes lifted she was barely on her feet in time for Mina to plow straight into her.

“Mina!” Samba exclaimed.

“Samba! I’m here! I’m here, I’m here, I came back to you, I promised, I--I’m sorry. I’m sorry for every time I left.” Mina pulled back and looked at Samba’s eyes, beautiful and dark brown and perfect. “I don’t know how much time we have left. The star worm crashed into the planet a while ago and it’ll kill us all here, soon enough. So. Before we die.” Mina cradled Samba’s face, watching her eyes widen in recognition of what Mina was about to say. “I love you. I love you more than anything and anyone else in the whole world. Including my faith. I don’t want to marry a man and have children--well, children are on the table, but not men. Women. You. I love you and I want to marry _you,_ so even though we don’t have time, Samba,” Mina took a deep breath, “will you be my fiance anyway?”

Samba smiled, already crying, and nodded. “We will marry in the next life.”

Mina pulled her in and kissed her, came home, home in her arms, strong around her back and waist, home in her breath and in her warmth.

“I love you,” Samba said when they parted, foreheads together and breaths intertwined. 

“I love you,” Mina said, just as the ground began to shake. She chuckled. “I made it.”

Samba pressed her head to Mina’s shoulders, and Mina wrapped her arms around her neck. “You did. Just in time.”

The shaking increased, nearly knocking them off their feet. Mina would have fallen, if she’d been standing on her own. But the two, interlocked, stood tall, together, to greet the end of the world.

Life burst forth from the ground around them.

“What?” Samba asked, startled, and Mina whipped her head this way and that. Plants, round plants, sprung up from every place, every patch of soil large enough to hold a tree, a bush, a flower.

“Mina, what-?”

“I don’t know either.”

The shaking stopped. It was--abrupt. Unexplained. Deeply confounding. What could have possibly--

“Robin,” Mina breathed, looking this way and that. “She must have, she still had half my seeds, this must…”

“Mina?” Samba asked, and Mina turned to her fiance(!!) with an expression of awe.

“Robin, my mechanic--friend, she must have killed the starworm! The thing was a giant mass of ivory, if she put my seeds inside of it then… this is all her doing, she. She did it.”

Mina laughed, then spun, picked up Samba, and twirled her around. “She did it!”

Samba laughed as well, and the moment she was set down she pulled Mina into a hug, then another kiss, then _another_ kiss just because. 

“So,” Samba said, a light of mischief in her eyes that meant Mina was about to regret something. “Robin is your ‘friend’ is she?”

Mina flushed. “How do you always know everything I try to keep secret!?”

“You’re not exactly subtle, darling,” Samba said, making Mina’s heart flip over. Darling. She was--that was _her,_ she was darling!

“Yeah, well, listen,” she spluttered, “It--it’s not, you’re my most important, Samba, I love you best of all, please, Robin isn’t a--threat, or anything, just, like, a crush or something I’m not--”

“Hey,” Samba said, bumping their foreheads together. “I get it, okay? She seems neat. When we were younger, I never understood Gustavo, remember? How he fell in love easily and had so many crushes all at once. I thought people were only supposed to have one crush at a time. But now I’m older, and I understand that that was what was natural for him. I’m not interested in dating Robin, personally,” Samba tucked a lock of hair behind Mina’s ear that had escaped. “But if you want to marry me and date her at the same time, I’m open to it.”

“Literally you’re the best, most perfect person in the world,” Mina said, heart full to overflowing. She couldn’t believe she was this lucky. She couldn’t believe their ancestors had placed this understanding, forgiving, perfect woman in her life. She kissed her again.

~~

Royal helped her out of the pit about as much as she helped him, and the two of them staggered, arm in arm, back to her house. “They’re beautiful,” Royal slurred, looking at the trees grown from Mina’s seeds. “I have always coveted… but surely they are so much better like this. Where everyone may see them.”

Robin, who already didn’t say much, wasn’t really in the mood for chit chat. They stumbled in through the front door of her home, Elro sitting up in her father’s bed. He was staring out the little circular window above the beds, at the rounded plants.

He turned to her, Royal’s arm over her shoulder and hers over his, bloodied and beat up but _victorious._

“Alright,” he said, exhaustion in every piece of him in equal part to how she felt it in herself, “I won’t try to tell you what to do anymore.”

She grinned, pulling at the dried trickle of blood cemented to her lip and chin, then pitched forward with Royal, barely missing Mina’s cat, and collapsed on the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment if you liked it!


	4. Chapter 4

Mina’s cat was an issue. Royal’s hair was also an issue. Robin loved her brother but being cooped up with him and Royal in the same space all the time was _also_ turning into an issue. All of these issues were fixable.

“Please be safe,” Elro asked. Not an order, just a quiet request. “We don’t know what’s going on in the world out there.”

“Ah, but we know what’s happening in Settlement 17! Confusion, but ultimately people going about their lives. As we must endeavor to do!” Royal said, tying the headscarf around his silver hair and admiring his reflection in the glass of the turned-off TV. He’d helped Robin bring it down to the main floor so Elro could watch from the bed or the table, instead of having to climb the ladder on his shot leg. 

They also knew that City One was likely still a wreck from all the shooting that had happened after the deaths of both Mother and Chrome. Neither of the three of them mentioned it. They all knew, anyway.

Blockrock was pleasant to walkthrough, now that there were trees literally everywhere. Local wildlife had calmed in the face of abundant food, and so they were not half as pestered as they made their way to the strange contraption as Robin normally was. One of the deer actually ended up running _away_ from them when it heard their approach, instead of charging them. It was pleasant, particularly since Royal was carrying Oedipuss (Royal informed them that yes, that was in fact what Mother had named the thing) and Robin didn’t want her to get hurt.

But before they descended the ladder to the contraption, they saw Dr. Gustavo and Teegan exiting, chatting animatedly about something or other.

“Ah, Robin! And Royal, we were just about to visit!” Dr. Gustavo greeted, hands held high.

“How’s that stubborn brother of yours?” Teegan asked. 

Robin briefly felt torn between saying “He’s fine” and “Stubborn as ever” and elected to tell her, “Stubborn as ever.” Teegan laughed, Dr. Gustavo joining in.

“Teegan’s been telling me about the most amazing efforts in the woods,” Dr. Gustavo said, “Sorry I haven’t been around to check on his leg—or, arm, or his eye, or his whole body in general really.” Dr. Gustavo scratched at the back of his head, then resumed his easygoing, if currently-delighted disposition. “It’s just been so fascinating and I completely lost track of the days.”

“Oh, pshaw, as if I’m the only one doing the talking!” Teegan said, elbowing him lightly but flushed with pleasure at his praise. “Gussy’s been sharing the most incredible--well, everything with me! There’s so much of our world that he’s seen, and he knows so much about anatomy!”

“I’m sure he does,” Royal said, and Robin elbowed him discreetly.

“We’re visiting Mina,” Robin stated.

“Oh, yes! Off once again to Isilugar!”

“Ah, have fun, kids,” Dr. Gustavo said with his hands in his pockets. “That’s one of the places I try not to go, anymore.”

“No?” Teegan asked with a quirked brow.

“Have no interest in monogamy or fatherhood, plus a disease I’d pass on to any children if I had them. Given that matrimony and parenthood are uh, pretty important values around there, well. Wasn’t really attached enough to my faith, kept leaving, kept loving in multiples, kept being childless, figured they wouldn’t quit shunning me and so.” He shrugged. “We parted ways.” His eyes lit up. “Oh, but, there’s a woman who you’ll likely find sitting on the couch on level two, it was her favorite haunt. If you spot her, give her this?”

Gustavo handed Robin a small sachet and she could feel the importance of this key inventory. She carefully tucked it into her pack, nodding sharply.

“Thanks. Alright, you kids stay safe.”

“Thank you, good doctor, may you two face many blessings in your journeys!”

Robin and Royal started their descent, and just barely heard Teegan’s “Ah, young love.”

She probably wasn’t aware she’d been so loud, chemico contra scientists tended to deal with a lot of loud noises that wore on their hearing. That was also likely why Royal pitched his voice a little louder than necessary when he said, “They seem like a nice couple.”

Mutual flustering exchanged, Robin dropped down and cranked the machine to Isilugar.

“So…” Royal descended slower, Oedipuss in the crook of his arm. “What are _your_ thoughts on monogamy?”

Robin shrugged, finally landing on the right one. She didn’t really have thoughts about it.

“I see, I see. And uh, thoughts on polyamory?”

This time she flung her hands up as she shrugged. She didn’t have thoughts on that either!

“Are you? Polyamorous, that is.”

She nodded.

“Ah, I see, I see. Excellent, then!”

~~

“Robin!” Mina cried as she entered her mother’s room. Samba was there with her, sitting at the table. The three of them had been playing cards, enjoying a quiet day spent together. Even her mother had been in a good mood, lately.

Robin hugged Mina, now expecting the embrace, and waved hello to her mother and Samba.

“And Royal.”

“You could greet the man who brought your cat back to you a little kinder,” Royal sniffed. Mina lit up when she paid attention to what he was carrying.

“Snowball!” she exclaimed, taking the cat from him. She immediately started purring.

“You’re even worse at names than Mother was.”

“I’ll shoot you,” Mina said, idly, reflexively, not caring at all. “Mom, Samba, look!”

“Mina, if you’re going to have all these people over, could you leave the room? I’m getting a headache…”

“Sure, mom,” Mina said, plopping the cat down on her bunk and spinning easily, taking Samba’s hand and joining them near the waterway entrypoint to the far left. They caught up, discussing Robin’s god-killing adventure, as well as the moon details Mina had been too rushed to ask about, and Royal’s disownment of his previous faith. He was doing… surprisingly well, for someone who had literally been defined by his faith up until a couple weeks ago.

Mina couldn’t help but feel warm, with her fiance cozied up to her side on her left, and Robin holding onto her right arm. She was the happiest Mina-sandwich, it was her.

Royal was practically vibrating with jealousy, hanging off Robin’s other arm, butting in with his infuriating frequency. But, unlike his normal interruptions to gloat or boast, he exclusively cut in to sing Robin’s praises.

“Y’know, Robin,” Samba mentioned in That Tone after Royal’s billionth tangent, “Mina thinks you’re pretty cool, too.”

Mina could practically see the little exclamation mark go off above her head, Robin’s cute face turning an even cuter shade of red. Not that her own face was any cooler. “Samba!”

Samba giggled, and Royal took the chance to say, “Well, who wouldn’t!?”

Mina rolled her eyes, but ugh, yeah, she’d never have a better opportunity than this. Samba was right, as always.

“I uh, also wanted to talk to you, about what I said before you fought the starworm.” Mina smiled, and Robin was red all the way to her cute little ears. “I meant it, you know? I really do love you. And Samba’s cool with it.” She brought Samba’s hand to her mouth and kissed it. “So, if you don’t mind sharing…?”

Robin hugged her, that time, strong arms (god she was so buff) wrapped around her shoulders, and Mina’s heart skipped a beat at her quiet, but meaningful, “I love you too.”

Mina hugged her around her waist, burning her nose into Robin’s shoulder, before Robin pulled back, holding her on the shoulders, and then kissed her cheek. Samba’s arms around her stomach shifted and Samba’s chin came to rest on her shoulder.

“I can see why Mina likes you so much,” she mentioned.

“I just think!” Royal burst, and Mina noticed that he was physically sitting on his hands. Had he been holding his breath? What a dork. “That if Mina is dating someone who isn’t Robin, Robin should also have the ability to date someone who isn’t Mina!”

“Yeah I’m fine with that,” Mina said easily, Samba stifling chuckles at her shoulder. 

“Okay! Well! Good!”

Robin kissed Mina’s cheek again, then stood, holding up a sachet and explaining that she had a delivery to make before they headed off to City One. Mina bid them both goodbye, Samba waving, and they watched the two leave, Royal bowing with his excessive grandeur. 

“...Do you think he thinks he’s subtle?” Samba asked when they were out of earshot.

“Samba, darling, I have no idea what goes on in that boy’s head.”

~~

City One was… well. About as Royal might have expected, if he was being honest with himself (which he was striving to do! He was a new man, a man who did not hide from inner truths!). Corpses of the One Concern soldiers and Bastion Elites were, hauntingly enough, everywhere. The stench was enough to make Royal miss Mina. 

The soft people of City One, those who had spent most or all of their lives in this place, were still in their homes, hidden from the world and from the violence outside their door.

Which meant most things were still available for looting! Royal would’ve paid, but there were no store clerks present, and he got the feeling money would quickly become something either obsolete, or needed back in Robin’s home. First, he got himself pants that weren’t white, torn, and grass stained, and then picked out a nice blue top. In the half-wrecked storefront of a hair salon, Royal perused the dye selection. Electric greens, sky blues, and vivid pinks stared back, but Royal was not drawn to them, as he might have been. Rather, he thought on Robin’s eyes, the warm brown that met his own when he looked at her, and selected a plain, functional bottle that simply said ‘brunette’ on its front. He pocketed a bottle of pink dye, however, thinking on Dr. Gustavo, and shared his thoughts with Robin.

She looked proud of him, nodding her approval, and he preened under her gaze. It was… not going to be easy, changing who he was as a person. But he could make do with little steps.

As they left City One, Robin paused, looking up at the gatekeeper’s station. A pair of birds sat perched on the ledge, preening each other’s feathers. Her face, it reminded him of when they met, when she admired the flowers he had grown, and his lips parted, slightly.

“Robin,” Royal said, tongue running ahead of his brain, “I…”

She looked at him, brown eyes warm and expectant and open. Open to him, as she always had been.

He had planned on flowers and grand gestures and wild poetry, but in that moment he wanted nothing more than to reach out, take her strong, calloused hand in his own soft ones, and tell her, “You are like those birds, to me. Precious. That which I want to sit beside and care for.”

Robin smiled, understanding, as she was so capable of doing, and stopped him from embarrassing himself by leaning in and pecking him on the lips. It was short, and chaste, and her touch barely-there, but it floored Royal anyway.

“A-ah…” And although there was ivory in his veins, when she smiled at him, wide and bright with her eyes squinting up, he felt warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the next chapter is gonna be the last one. Dunno for sure tho. Comments always appreciated!


End file.
